This IS how our kids will have to compete. Good colleges have become all but unaffordable for the middle class. Completely unaffordable if you have more than one child. The UCs as we knew them do not exist anymore. The foreign students, especially mainland Chinese, are given priority because they have to pay so much more. The UC system announced this last fall! They are interested in profit and administrative salaries more than educating American kids. Ironic, as the UC system, as well as the CSUs, we're created specifically for educating California kids, and the law states that they are to be given first priority. Jerry Brown has tried unsuccessfully to remind them of this.

The East Coast schools are no better. I personally know grads from MIT and Columbia who say that their alma maters did not prepare them for Silicon Valley at all, and they feel undereducated here.

We have a friend who is a former CEO of Intel who has tried u successfully for YEARS to make the Obama administration see that the US is one of only four countries in the world ( the others are in Africa) that do not pay the cost of at least a four-year degree for their citizens, and that this must change IMMEDIATELY.

Sometimes I think all is hopeless unless there is a middle class revolt.

I saw a news program that brought up how do they prevent cheating? And this is not easy, there are several methods they employ, but still it gives me pause to endorse this method of learning in a major way.
Taking one or two online courses makes sense; getting the entire degree remotely doesn't seem equivalent to me to being on a UC campus and participating in classes and sections with TAs.

Gee, I know UC Berkeley and MIT grads here and they seem to be ultra successful and well-educated. Do you mean very recent grads (like in the past 5 years or something)? -- that could be different, I suppose.

I do oppose the current practice of "selling" of UC spots to foreign students, some of whom have doctored (phony) applications. UC should give priority to legal California citizens and residents - end of story.

@neighbor: I was talking about recent grads from MIT, Cornell, Columbia, Boston University, Michigan, Geogia Tech--all in the last 3-4 years!

The state of CA has laws that say California high school grads who qualify MUST have first priority at the CSUs and UCs. Jerry Brown has reminded them of this but had no luck enforcing it. The UCs announced last September that foreign students were given priority because the system needs the money. That does NOT bode well for CA or the nation, especially if schools in other states are doing the same thing as the UCs here ( and from some accounts, they are). It is a national tragedy and a national crisis, but all the schools can think about is money NOW, not national economic well-being in the future.

This situation is certainly immoral, untenable, and should be criminal. Charity begins at home, my friends

Until our government catches up to almost all the rest of the world in funding advanced education, the only recourse is online education. For lack of anything better right now, we have to do SOMETHING to level the playing field!